


Other Half

by Mosca



Series: Other Half [1]
Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: Growing Up Together, M/M, POV Alternating, Two Bottoms One Relationship, Winter Olympics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-11
Updated: 2015-02-11
Packaged: 2018-03-11 22:23:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3334943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mosca/pseuds/Mosca
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jason and Josh have literally been together since they were ten years old, and they'll be together long past thirty.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Other Half

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to lovessong for beta reading and plot unsticking! And to the Twizzlers for enabling.
> 
> In the 2015 US Nationals free skate press conference, Jason Brown said that he and Joshua Farris "have been together since we were ten," and then they giggled uncontrollably while Josh interrupted to correct how many times they'd stood on a podium together. It was like being handed a large, sparkly box of canon.
> 
> This fic contains: non-explicit discussion of fifteen-year-olds doing sexual things together, much more explicit depiction of seventeen-year-olds having sex, explicit depiction of an anaphylactic allergy attack, drunk sex, important decisions made while on painkillers, institutional homophobia, one gay slur, a torrent of F-bombs, mentions of minor off-screen infidelity, vegan baked goods, and near-intolerable levels of cuteness.

10.

Getting on an airplane to go to a competition was exciting. Jason had competed at nearby rinks before, sometimes even mixed in with girls, so when Kori told him he was old enough and good enough to travel _as long as he behaved himself,_ he resolved to be as grown up as possible and also to get his jumps perfect. Juvenile seemed like a scarily advanced category to be in, even though he’d passed his Intermediate test already. 

So of course he messed up under the pressure and fell on his axel. He stayed in the locker room, licking his wounds, until there was only one other kid left, a skinny boy with black hair, hunched defeatedly over his iPod. Jason’s brain picked this terrible moment to go _I think I like boys, I know I like boys, oh my God, what am I supposed to do now?_ So Jason silenced his brain the best way he knew how, which was to open his mouth. The other boy, whose name was Josh, shared his headphones. Jason tried to share a snack, but Josh scooted away, saying, “I have these allergies. I could literally die. I can’t, like, even touch it.”

“But what if someone touches you?” Jason said. “You know, by accident. Or what if they kissed you?”

“I don’t know. Nobody’s ever kissed me. Except, like, my mom, and nobody else in my house eats dairy products either because of me.”

“What about if they kissed you on the cheek?” Jason said, and before he got an answer, he kissed Josh on the cheek.

Josh blushed and giggled instead of running away or yelling that Jason was a fag or punching Jason in the face, like a normal ten-year-old boy would. Instead, he said, “I guess I didn’t die.” He squeezed Jason’s hand, and five minutes holding a boy’s hand in a locker room felt like a very big deal.

*

12.

They were in a hotel room in Cleveland. Josh had moved up to Intermediate and kind of sucked; Jason had been held back in Juvenile Land and won. They were playing Truth Or Dare, and Jason picked “dare” because if he picked “truth” they were just going to ask him who he had a crush on. He felt uncomfortable lying in a game with _truth_ right there in the name, and he didn’t have a crush on anyone there, except possibly Josh. And that didn’t feel so much like a crush anymore, just the quiet background noise of like-liking his friend.

The girl giving out the dares had an evil look in her eye. “Kiss the person who you think has never been kissed,” she said.

Kissing a girl would give the wrong impression. Kissing a boy was possible suicide. Josh was the only person left – not that Josh wasn’t a boy, just that Josh was a boy he _trusted._

Jason had no idea how to actually kiss someone, but he did his best, and it must have been fine because what Josh was doing felt a lot like kissing him back. And it felt good, like, kind of perfect, like all the rumors about kissing were true.

Josh pulled him into a corner of the room. “You totally kissed me two years ago.”

“That wasn’t a real kiss. I was trying to see if you’d die.”

Josh scrunched up his face. Clearly, it had been real to him.

“You’re also the only one here I wanted to kiss,” Jason said.

They stood in the corner and worked on their kissing skills. The other kids ignored them, busy truth-ing and daring each other, until somebody’s mom came in and told them they all had to go to bed.

*

13.

Josh and Jason went 1-2 in Intermediate at Nationals. For half a moment, Josh wondered if he should have missed a jump on purpose so Jason could win. He knew Jason would never forgive him for that, though. They were always going to be like this, neck and neck, or at least that’s how Josh hoped it would be. He didn’t want to lose to anyone else. He didn’t want anyone else to come close.

Josh’s trophy was a giant blue cup, and he was the one to notice that it would make a cool helmet. Jason, of course, was the one to take the joke further: butt helmet. Some lady who was not either of their mothers ran up to them and told them to quit being inappropriate. This was so much less inappropriate than making out that Josh could not stop laughing for two minutes straight. And when Josh couldn’t stop laughing, Jason couldn’t stop laughing either.

At the banquet that night, scratching at the sleeves of the blazer he’d outgrown and staring enviously at the food he couldn’t eat, Josh overheard the “inappropriate” woman talking to some other mom. “Those two boys who won, how long do you think it will be before they realize they can’t be friends? Because they’re going to make it, if they both stay in. And that means they’re going to be standing next to each other on every podium until they’re twenty-five, and sooner or later it’s not going to be so funny anymore.”

By the end, Josh was sure the woman intended for him to hear. She was either warning him or trying to take him down a peg. Whatever, all he chose to take from her negativity was _every podium until we’re twenty-five._

*

15.

Josh was surprised to find out when he got to Spokane that he and Jason were rooming together. His mom looked proud of herself when he met her in the lobby to get his food, and he was almost completely sure that she and Jason’s mom had made this happen. Josh didn’t talk about Jason much with his mom because he wasn’t sure what to say. But every once in a while, she’d say something offhand to reassure Josh that she didn’t mind him having a boyfriend, and that she was glad it was Jason. “I think he brings you out of your shell,” she’d said on the plane, for example.

Since it was an Olympic year, Nationals were earlier than usual and a bigger production than Josh remembered from the previous year. Maybe it was also because Junior was a much bigger deal than Novice, especially since he’d won the past two years. With so much going on, all he wanted was to spend time alone with Jason. Of course, nature was their enemy, so Jason’s flight from Chicago got delayed. Josh would have sat in his room all night, watching internet porn, if Tom hadn’t come to his door and frog-marched him to the gym. “Whatever it is, get it out of your system,” Tom said.

The longer Josh spent on the elliptical, the more he seemed to have bottled up in his system. It wasn’t sexual frustration or nervous energy, which he could have exercised away. He only got to see Jason two weeks out of the year as it was, and now he was losing a day to snow.

Tom was wise enough to come back around in half an hour to make sure Josh hadn’t crawled off somewhere to jerk off sullenly. “Do we need to talk?”

Josh shook his head but remembered that the truth often worked better on Tom. “My boyfriend’s plane is late, and I’m worried about him.”

“Don’t do that,” Tom said, like changing his emotions was as easy as changing an edge. “Focus on yourself and your skating.”

“Okay.”

“You know, maybe dating isn’t such a great idea for you now, kiddo,” Tom said.

“He’s a skater, he lives a thousand miles away, we see each other twice a year,” Josh said. “It’s not like he _interferes_ with anything.”

“Well, let’s keep an eye on that.” Tom patted Josh hard on the arm, a display of over-masculine false solidarity that made Josh less and less comfortable lately. “And maybe you can spend some more time with the girls at the rink. You’re only fifteen, you know. A lot can change.”

Josh was a homeschooled teenager with half a brain. The parental controls on his home internet were laughable. A thorough survey of websites he wasn’t supposed to be visiting had taught him that no amount of time with girls at the rink was going to make him straight. And even if it could, how could he love one of them more than he loved Jason?

Josh went through the motions of his afternoon, finishing his workout, reading the book his mom had assigned him for English, and having dinner with some of the other Broadmoor kids. He tried to go to bed early so he’d be refreshed for practice, but he ended up lying awake listening to music until Jason bounded in at one in the morning. Josh stretched wide and turned the light on.

“Oh my God, you waited up?” Jason said. “You weren’t supposed to do that.”

“Couldn’t sleep.” Josh got up, squeezed Jason close, and kissed his forehead. Josh had always been taller, but lately, the gap was widening.

Jason hugged back for an admirably long time before saying, “Sorry, but all I want to do right this second is pee, plug in my phone, and take all my clothes off.”

“Go for it,” Josh said. As Jason shut the bathroom door, Josh added, “Don’t put any new ones on.”

He heard Jason’s giggle fit through the door. They could probably hear it in the lobby. Josh half hoped Jason would come out of the bathroom naked and half hoped he’d chicken out. Josh himself was dragging his feet, still in his pajama bottoms. He pulled the covers up over his lap and kicked his pants off underneath so he could yank them back on in a hurry if he’d played this wrong.

Jason’s insatiable desire for attention seemed to win out over his frustratingly low opinion of himself, and he tiptoed out nervously naked. Until tonight, there had been two kinds of male bodies: the ones in locker rooms that Josh could never look at, and the ones online whose whole purpose was to be stared at. Josh blinked to adjust to Jason, somewhere in between, normal and real but safe to admire.

They started out kissing and found their way to rolling around on the bed, grinding against each other until they each came. Turning out the light, Josh felt that something important had happened, something that had changed him, even though he’d never seen anything like it on the internet.

*

16.

Jason was in the hallway signing autographs and taking pictures with people, because somehow people actually knew who he was and thought he was important enough to take pictures with even though he’d only come in ninth, when Kori came running up to him to tell him Josh was in the hospital. “I’m really sorry,” he said to the girl who was lining up her camera. “It’s an emergency. I’m sorry. Thank you!”

Kori led him into the athletes-only area beneath the arena before she told him anything. When she squared off serious-faced with her hands on his shoulders, he blurted before she could speak. “Is it his allergies again? Is he okay? Can I see him? He shouldn’t have skated. When I saw him this morning he said he wasn’t going to skate.”

“All I know is coach gossip,” Kori said, smiling wryly so Jason couldn’t help but relax halfway. “He hurt himself during his free skate. Like anyone would if they’d been in the hospital until three in the morning and pumped full of drugs.” She looked over both of her shoulders before whispering, “Any coach who would let a kid skate in that condition is an asshole. But you didn’t hear that from me.”

“So can we go to the hospital and see if he’s all right?” Jason said.

“Probably not,” Kori said, gentle but uncompromising, as if he were faking a headache and asking to leave the rink early. “Even if they’d let you in to visit, which I doubt, you need to stick around in case they name you to the team for Junior Worlds.”

Jason nodded resignedly. They went down to the press room, where he did get named to the team, and the smile he forced was the most difficult of his life. After the announcement, he made himself go bowling with a bunch of other skaters to distract himself from worrying about Josh. It didn’t work - he couldn’t keep himself from checking his phone. People kept looking at him like they were afraid to ask what was wrong, or like they knew exactly what was wrong but weren’t sure what to do about it.

His phone vibrated in his pocket after he’d sunk yet another gutter ball. “Hey,” Josh slurred.

“Hi! Are you alive? I’ve been freaking out all afternoon.”

“Pretty sure I’m alive,” Josh said. “Lotta painkillers. I broke my leg and sprained a … thing. Doctor said I can go home tonight though. Hotel home.”

“Good. We can hang out in the room. Do you have a cast? Can I draw on it?”

“No, go to the party, don’t worry about me,” Josh said.

“I’m at the party,” Jason said. “I mean, I’m out bowling, being a total buzzkill, and I’ll be even worse if I know I could be hanging with you.”

Jason loved the moments when Josh didn’t know what to say, and he could feel the rumble of Josh’s shy laughter through the phone.

Josh got back from the hospital at about the same time Jason got back from the bowling alley. He had crutches and hazy, hollowed-out eyes. Jason helped him into bed and arranged pillows so he was comfortable. Josh was so high that Jason didn’t mind letting him play with his hair. With Josh’s warm hands tickling the back of his neck, Jason could finally chill out.

“I didn’t want to go out to dinner,” Josh was drawling. “Not the night before the free, that’s dumb, but Tom wanted all his skaters together, to celebrate, I don’t know what. I wasn’t going to eat anything, but everyone was looking at me weird, and I got this salad, thought I’d be okay and then boom.”

“I thought salad was safe,” Jason said. “How could salad kill you? It’s _salad._ ”

“Food kills me. It’s what food does.”

Jason leaned back into Josh’s fragile arms and kissed his cheek.

“So I sleep for like four hours. And my phone rings, and I literally answered like, ‘Whaaaa?’ And it’s my coach, so I’m like, ‘Okay, can you tell the officials I’m withdrawing, thanks, I am going back to bed for like a week.’ But he’s like, ‘No, if you can stand, you can skate, and I know you can stand because you’ve had these allergic reactions before and you’re always fine in 24 hours.’ And he’s like – he has this way of brainwashing you into stuff, and also he’s telling me flat out he’s not going to withdraw me, I’m going to have to put on my costume and skate out to confer with the judges myself. So I’m like, fine, I’ll warm up and see how I feel. Which is like, I just barely survived a fight with salad, but I’m on a huge pile of Prednisone and I think I’m okay and then when I fall I literally hear something snap. And he makes me sit through my scores before he lets medical look at me. So I’m firing him in the morning. When I’m not on so many drugs.”

“I think you should fire him now when you can blame the drugs,” Jason said. “I mean, how often do you get to blame the drugs?”

“Hm,” Josh said, and either he was thinking it over or he had fallen asleep for a minute.

“Do it or I’m putting my hair away.”

Josh petted Jason’s head like Josh was two years old and Jason was a very soft bunny. “Can you get my phone? It’s in my bag.” While Jason was digging through the shocking array of weird crap in Josh’s bag, Josh added, “My mom’s already talked with this other coach I’ve worked with a few times, so I won’t be coachless. Or even in trouble.”

Jason lunged with the phone in his outstretched hand, giggling pre-emptively. Josh dialed, and after a suspenseful pause, mouthed, _Voicemail._ Then he said out loud, into the phone, “Hi, Tom, this is Josh, and I just want to say, fuck you. Fuck you for forcing me to go out and making me sick. Fuck you for forcing me to skate today and telling me I was weak when I was crying in pain when I’d fucking broken my fucking leg. Fuck you for making me put money in a swear jar so I would stop saying fuck, which is a really good word when a salad almost fucking killed me and now I can’t skate at all for two months, even though you’d probably try to convince me I can. Oh, and because I’m in my boyfriend’s hotel room now, fuck you for telling me I had to choose between skating and having a boyfriend, because your game plan got me to twenty-first fucking place in my senior debut, and his coach thinks I rock and he came in ninth. So, um, I don’t know what else, fuck you and have a good night.”

For possibly the first time in six years, Jason was the speechless one. He liked how it felt to let Josh have the last word.

*

17.

They were at Champs Camp, fucking. A long weekend together without the stress of competition was a luxury they’d never experienced. Wise to them, the organizers had placed them in separate rooms, and equally wise to them, their assigned roommates had immediately switched. With their room reassignment squared away, they’d pounced on each other in a cartoon dust cloud of hormones and enthusiasm. After years of study, Josh finally felt ready to try giving a blow job. Seriously, if he could have accepted homeschooling credit for Theoretical Gay Sex, he would have graduated a semester early.

They didn’t have a conversation about being ready for grown-up sex, and Josh wasn’t sure why now was the time. He’d come prepared to Nationals and Junior Worlds, devising creative ways to hide condoms and lube in his luggage. But when they’d gotten to those competitions, they’d retreated to the comfort of grinding and humping like they’d been doing for the past two years. Josh hadn’t felt disappointed, only curious and a little bit stalled.

They were making out furiously, to the point where Josh started to fear they were going to backslide into their old habits. Jason detached his lips from Josh’s neck - probably a good thing, since sometimes Jason left marks on Josh practically just by looking at him, and then Josh had to go borrow concealer from the ice dancers - and asked, “Did you want to be on top or on the bottom?”

“Whatever you want. Go ahead,” Josh said.

“Really? Because this has been a major sticking point for, like, a year. I kept thinking you were going to say something, and every time I tried I got all embarrassed about it.” Jason giggled, his nervous laugh rather than his happy one. Josh didn’t like being the cause of it.

“So did you, like, have a preference?” Josh said. “Because I guess you’re supposed to, but, like…” They were still pressed up against each other, still half-hard, and Josh wished he were capable of making a decision before the moment passed.

“I don’t know. Maybe bottom? But it’s not like I’ve tried either one.” Another tinkling Jason giggle. “Oh crap, we’re both bottoms, does this mean we have to break up?”

Josh contemplated for a moment. “Rock-paper-scissors. Whoever wins gets fucked.” They pried themselves apart so they wouldn’t punch each other, then tied twice before Josh’s scissors cut Jason’s paper.

Josh lay down on his stomach. Jason kissed the back of his neck and said, “I guess if this doesn’t work, we can do it the other way tomorrow. And if it does, we can just do it again the same way. So we win either way.”

Jason didn’t try for more making out or even a heads-up, and the lube was ice-cold at first. But Jason’s fingers warmed it up, warmed Josh up, eased his mind and probably Jason’s as well. Fingers, and more fingers, and kisses along his spine, A pinch of pain, but Josh knew what was going on. He knew the difference between pain that tells you to stop and pain that pushes you to keep going.

Josh accepted the sting and relaxed, and that’s when it started to feel good, good like an ice bath on sore muscles, his body fighting it and begging for it at the same time. He had a boy inside him, a boy who _loved_ him. Josh’s body ached and stretched to let Jason in. He tried to tell Jason not to rush, but the words jumbled into a moan.

Jason’s rhythm jerked and stalled, but he came in a hushed and un-Jason-like way. Breathless, Jason said, “Do you want me to keep on, or, like - ? Or did you already? It’s weird, I can usually tell.”

Consumed in sensation, Josh had forgotten about his dick. Every other time in his life when he’d been this hard, his dick had been all he’d been able to think about. “You can stop. I mean, I’m close, but I need to - or you need to - like, I think if I was going to come that way, I already would have?”

“Sorry,” Jason said dejectedly as he pulled out.

“No, no, it wasn’t you, it was - we have to switch tomorrow. So you can feel that.” He rolled over to face Jason’s tentative smile.

“Okay, here, I’ll -”

Josh cut Jason off. “Oh my God, you can’t, your hands are covered in butt.” Before Jason had stopped laughing at that, Josh had found the lube and jerked himself the rest of the way off.

Jason lay down on top of Josh, his head on Josh’s chest. Josh kissed the part in his hair. The bed was ridiculously narrow. “It didn’t feel like I expected it to feel,” Jason said. “But it was pretty amazing. Like, in case you were wondering.”

“I was, but you know, tomorrow.”

“And then two more days and I don’t see you again until forever,” Jason sighed. “What do you think about me moving to Colorado after I graduate?”

Startled, Josh hesitated too long.

“Never mind. It’s just one option,” Jason said.

“No, that would be - like, I can’t even imagine it, it would be so perfect,” Josh said. “But you’d leave Kori? Who’d you work with?”

“Kori’s been talking about moving,” Jason said. “Rinks are crazy expensive in Chicago, and I don’t want to go to college there anyway. Colorado’s on her list. I think if I say it’s my first choice, she’ll go for it.”

Josh hadn’t given much thought to college. He was looking forward to passing his last few exams so he could train full-time. Maybe he’d take a community college class here or there, just to keep his brain functioning. “That’s - I mean, if _you’re_ good with it, then - then tonight is kind of the best night of my life, so -”

“One more year,” Jason said drowsily. “And the first thing I’m going to do is buy a really big bed.”

 

*

18.

This was Jason’s new apartment, full of boxes and not-yet-assembled IKEA furniture and textbooks still in plastic wrap. He’d wanted to live in the dorms, but Colorado College didn’t allow freshmen to have cars on campus, not even when they were Olympic hopefuls who needed a way to get to the rink. So instead he had this too-big place to himself because apparently there was no such thing as a small apartment in Colorado Springs, and if there was his parents would have refused to let him live in it because they thought he required “somewhere nice.” But “nice” places had white walls like blank computer screens, and they echoed when he slid across the hardwood floor in his socks.

Jason wanted to text Josh and invite him over, but he was afraid of smothering Josh. Josh needed alone time in a way Jason respected but had never understood from personal experience. Maybe his new apartment could teach him about being alone and liking it. He looked out at the mountains out his window, at how quiet they were, and tried to come up with some meaning behind them. After a minute of trying to bend his brain into a shape that it didn’t want to take, he gave up, put on some music, and assembled a bookshelf.

With the bookshelf built, Jason checked his phone. The music had drowned it out, and he had a whole bunch of texts from Josh. They didn’t sound sad or worried, but they did say he wanted to come over, which made Jason feel like his heart was whizzing around the room in every direction.

 **Still there???** Jason texted. **Please come over I’m so bored!**

Josh texted back almost immediately, giving Jason a sad mental image of him sitting by his phone and brooding. **Ok thought you had a class or something, whats the address**

Josh got there so fast, he must have broken a million traffic laws and maybe some laws of physics. They kissed in the doorway like they hadn’t seen each other in months, even though Josh had just been there yesterday. “Sorry,” Jason said, “I should have invited you before, but I thought, like, maybe you would want some space instead of being here all the time.”

“But I _want_ to be here all the time,” Josh said. “Or, you know. When I’m not skating and stuff. Didn’t we spend, like, years wishing we could see each other every day, and now we can?”

“Yeah, but, like - you’re not going to get tired of me?”

“Let’s see,” Josh said. “You skate three hours a day, you’re going to college full time, and I’ve never gotten tired of you in my entire life. So not really.”

Jason kissed Josh, bouncing on his toes. It was awkward standing in the doorway, so he led Josh over to his new couch, which was bright red and squishy and perfect. Josh rested his head on Jason’s shoulder. “So I talked stuff over with my parents,” Josh said. “And they said, like, I can’t officially move in with you, because rent and skating expenses and whatever. But I can stay over as much as I want as long as I’m not blowing off my training or failing my classes.”

Jason hadn’t even thought about the possibility of Josh moving in. His own parents would probably have a fit if he suggested it, no matter how much they liked Josh and trusted Jason. As romantic as it sounded, Jason was wise enough to realize he’d miss out on a lot of his freshman year, more than he was missing out on already, and besides, it was an Olympic year, even if it was an Olympics they were never in a million years going to qualify for. But he didn’t feel like he needed to say any of that. Josh had probably gone over it in his own mind more times than Jason had. So instead, Jason said, “You’re taking classes?”

“Yeah, I signed up part time at Pike’s Peak. Math and Music Appreciation. It was kind of a last minute thing. I just, like, it gets really mind-numbing to train all day, and you were so excited about going to college, it was contagious. So we’ll see. The music class is really good.”

“Is it weird if I say I’m proud of you?” Jason said.

“Yeah, kind of.”

“Seriously, though,” Jason said. “Look at us being all independent and making mature decisions and stuff.” Their sarcastic high-five turned into very earnest making out. In the middle of it, Jason said, “Yeah. We’re super mature.”

*

19.

Jason was going to the Olympics. The Olympics! Josh was in the Winners’ Lounge, on his way to his second consecutive Goat Medal, when Jason realized he’d won the free skate, a silver medal, and a trip to Russia. Jason ran around screaming and hugging everyone, but when he got to Josh, he paused, smiling contritely. Josh swept Jason up in his arms and whispered, “No kissing on the mouth.” They hugged and giggled like this was any other podium, any other time one of them edged out the other.

Jason got sucked back into the vortex of interviews and photos, spit out briefly for the medal ceremony, and sucked in again until the gala rehearsal. Josh and Max threw themselves a two-man pity party off to the side. Jason kept looking over at Josh like he had something to apologize for.

At the gala, Jason stood at the boards to watch Josh skate, then followed him backstage. “I love that program,” Jason said. “I wish I could, like, feel the music the way you do.”

“Stop trying to make me feel better,” Josh said. “I’m, like, ridiculously excited. Like, we’ve been talking since we were kids about someday going to the Olympics, and now - you’re _going._ ”

“But I always thought when I went, you’d go too.” He looked around, justifiably paranoid about photographers, before clasping both of Josh’s hands tight in his.

“So you’ll just have to kick ass for both of us,” Josh said.

“Don’t lie to me like that when we’re alone. I know how I’d feel if I were you, and I know _you,_ and there’s no way you’re all happy and flouncy and supporting me like it’s just as good as being there.”

“There’s also no way I’m taking this away from you,” Josh said. “I’m a million times more happy for you than I’m sorry for myself.”

Jason studied him for a moment, then kissed him. “I sort of believe you.”

A high-pitched “Hey!” interrupted them. It was the girl who’d come in second, Polina Something. “They sent me to find you guys.” She looked them over; they were still hand in hand. “Probably because I was the only one who didn’t know you two were a couple.”

“Hey, silver twin,” Jason said, reaching out to fist-bump her. It looked like Jason had connected with her instantly. He had that effect on people.

“It’s so quiet here,” Polina said. “Can I hide with you guys for a minute before we go back?”

“Sure,” Jason said.

“Listen,” Josh said. “Can you do me a favor?”

Polina nodded.

“When you’re in Sochi, and he’s freaking out about something or has some, like, amazing idea, or a song he needs you to listen to? Just, just giggle hysterically until he picks up on it. You’ll chill him right out.”

“Josh.” Jason glared at him fake-seriously. “You can’t hire someone to pretend to be you while I’m at the Olympics.”

Polina shrugged. “He’s not paying me. I’m volunteering.”

“Never mind, she’s perfect,” Jason said. They walked back to the waiting area where they were supposed to be, Josh towering over both of them in his skates.

 

*

20.

Getting through a press conference sitting next to Josh was a major feat of endurance. They had to not look at each other at all or they would start laughing, although chances were they would start laughing even if they didn’t look at each other, and that didn’t solve the problem of finishing each other’s sentences. Adam took matters into his own hands at the free skate press conference, interrupting Josh before he could tell America what Jason meant to him and then TLDRing all over Jason’s gold-medal limelight. Jason couldn’t decide which one had annoyed him more, so he was calling it a draw.

Jason dealt with negative feelings in his usual way, smiling and chatting with Adam like everything was fine, then whispering snide comments to Josh. Jason was hanging back way more than usual, sticking with Josh and pretending that Josh felt overwhelmed by all the attention. The truth was, people turned cold when you won. A silver medal makes you America’s sweetheart, but gold makes you a force to be reckoned with. For years, Kori had joked, “Any day now, kid, people are going to start taking you seriously.” Now that the day had come, Jason wished he could go back to being mistaken for the sweet guy who was just skating for the fun of it. 

Not enough to give up his gold medal, though, of course. Or to settle for just one senior national title.

Jason ran into Adam in the men’s room and screwed on his smile. He hoped a wave and a “Hey” would get him back to safety, but Adam cornered him by the hand dryer. “You should be more careful.”

“Oh! Sorry.” Jason had no idea what he’d done.

“I mean, I don’t know why I’m even telling you this, because obviously you’ve had media training,” Adam said. “But don’t you think, like, the two of you are hanging on each other kind of a lot?”

“No more than, like, you and Ashley do,” Jason said. There was a fine line between sarcasm and playing dumb.

Adam looked him over, head to toe, sneering like a Disney villain. He was normally a nice enough guy, so Jason wondered what he was up to. Bitter about second place much? They’d probably be friendly again by morning, when Adam got over it, and honestly, when Jason got over it. “It’s just,” Adam said, “it’s just, you might have noticed your boyfriend is crazy hot.”

The compliment was obviously backhanded, but Jason couldn’t tell what direction Adam was trying to send it in. “Yeah, I mean, that’s one of the things I like about him.”

“No, totally, he seems really into you, even though he could have his pick.”

“Guess he just has a thing for national champions and Olympic medalists,” Jason said, regaining his confidence.

“So you’re not, like, okay. I know this is weird to ask, but you’re not in an open relationship or anything, are you?”

So that’s where this was going? Jason guessed it was better than outright hostility. “Are you asking permission to hit on Josh?”

“No, I’m -” Adam shifted his feet. “I’m asking permission to hit on _you._ ”

The only answer that Jason could muster was a choked sound in his throat.

“What can I say? I have a thing for gold medals, too. And, like, optimism.”

Jason found himself considering it. Adam was cute if he kept his mouth shut. “Well, I’d have to run it by Josh, obviously. But maybe? I don’t know, I’m sorry, this is kind of blowing me away.”

“No, I get it. I mean, invite him too! You’re kind of more my type than he is, but like I said, crazy hot.”

“I, um, thanks,” Jason said, feeling strangely un-flattered. “I’ll get back to you, okay?” He practically bolted down the hall, hoping to find Josh, but more than that, needing to escape a situation that was not only awkward but tempting. He’d never had sex with anyone but Josh. He’d kissed two other people - a girl when he was fourteen, to see what it felt like, and a boy when he was sixteen and mad at Josh for some reason he couldn’t remember - and both times, Josh had forgiven him sweetly. He’d wondered what it would be like, though, wondered a lot, and had dirty nightmares about cheating. But if Josh was there too, it wouldn’t be cheating - it’d kind of be the opposite.

He found Josh about three seconds later in the hallway. “There are all these people looking for you,” Josh said. “And of course you left your phone in your bag, so they’re all asking _me,_ and I’m like, ‘Hell if I know.’ Where were you?”

“Getting propositioned for a threesome.” Jason was totally incapable of not giggling.

“For real? Who?”

“Adam,” Jason said, laughing harder.

Josh caught his giggle fit, finally. “What did you tell him?”

“That I’d ask you if you wanted to.”

“You’d ask me if I -” Josh took a moment to collect himself, not that it did much good. Still laughing, he said,“Do _you_ want to?”

“Maybe? I’m not sure. I kind of want to punch him in the face,” Jason said. “But the general idea, like - if you were there, it might be fun. Like, _only_ if you were there, and it was someone we were both really into, and -”

“And not someone you kind of want to punch in the face? Because I think, like, probably that would be a better situation for everybody.” He took both of Jason’s hands, the way they always seemed to when they were telling each other something important. “But some other time, definitely. Maybe even tonight.”

“Maybe not tonight,” Jason said. “I’d kind of rather just celebrate with you.”

*

21.

Josh had thought that winning a national medal made a person fucking tired, but it was nothing compared to Worlds. Especially since he’d won his bronze medal in Boston. For the international press, Josh had to remember to _really_ abide by his media training rules, since sarcasm didn’t translate so well into Japanese and Russian. On top of everything else, he hadn’t eaten since breakfast because he couldn’t trust the food and he’d accidentally left his last day’s worth of meals with his mom. It was 9 PM, and he was never leaving this hotel room again, which meant Jason needed to show up with dinner really fucking soon. Josh’s mom and Jason had a whole system for making sure Josh got fed things that wouldn’t kill him. Up until now, they’d been basically a machine, but everyone had been too excited about his medal to remember to feed him.

Josh had managed to take off his shoes and spread-eagle face down on the bed by the time Jason showed up. Jason poked his feet. “Don’t tell me you’ve, like, convinced yourself a World medal is some terrible burden.”

“No, just tired,” Josh said. “And starving.”

“Well, you’re going to have to roll over, because I got the Tupperware from your mom. And something else.” The way Jason said it, “something else” could have been anything from an armful of fan gifts to Jason’s penis.

Josh wanted dinner, so he sat up. His meal was already rotating in the little hotel room microwave. Jason presented him with a rectangular white box, tied up with string. Flowers, maybe? Josh picked the knot loose and opened the box, releasing a whoosh of sugary smell. “Donuts? Donuts _I can eat?_ ”

“They’re from a vegan bakery,” Jason said. “They swore on their firstborn that everything is made in-house and they don’t permit any dairy products in the kitchen.”

“Oh my _God._ ” Josh wiggled a donut free from the box, coating his fingers with frosting and sprinkles. Jason lifted the box out of Josh’s lap and leaned in to kiss him, but Josh waved him away. He was communing with his donut. More responsible food choices wafted from the beeping microwave, but today was the first day of a hard-earned off-season, and Josh was having his dessert first. Jason hung back, looking proud of himself.

When Josh had devoured his donut, Jason slinked into his lap. “Anything else you want?”

Josh knew that when Jason got flirtatious, it was mostly about Jason. Josh enjoyed that about him - he never had to wonder when Jason wanted a blow job. “I want to suck my boyfriend’s dick,” Josh said.

They switched places, Jason sitting on the bed, Josh kneeling on the floor. Josh loved taking him in like this, no lead-in, no warning, just Jason’s jeans around his knees and Josh’s mouth around his cock. With all the strangeness of the past few days, Jason’s familiarity became a refuge: the sound he made when Josh teased his balls, the way he jerked and shifted his hips to make sure Josh took him in just deep enough. He knew Jason’s timing, knew how to pull back when Jason edged and keep him enjoying it longer. He felt Jason tense, about to come, and let him release.

Jason pulled Josh to his feet and kissed him. Josh didn’t understand why Jason always wanted to be kissed right after, but he didn’t mind, either. Jason held him for a moment, kissing his neck. “Are you too tired? It’s okay. I don’t want to push.”

Josh flopped back onto the bed. “Maybe. I’m kind of tired and kind of … just do things to me and see what happens.”

Jason looked inspired and devious. “Really?”

“You got the donuts right. I trust you.”

Jason stood for a few moments, smoothing his hair, his mind clearly hard at work. “Okay, so, can you take your clothes off and close your eyes?” That was reasonable. Jason’s attempts to sexily undress Josh usually ended in uncontrollable giggling and unintentional bondage. Josh piled his clothes indifferently on the floor and lay on his back, knees bent, eyes shut. He felt Jason’s lips on his wrist first, trailing up the soft and translucent skin on the inside of his arm, sucking and biting harder as Jason reached his bicep, probably leaving all kinds of mysterious marks. Jason nuzzled up into Josh’s armpit, getting his tongue in there. It was a weird little habit of Jason’s, something Josh would never ask for but wouldn’t want Jason to stop doing. It almost tickled, made his toes curl.

When Jason went after Josh’s nipples, though, that was what made Josh’s dick hard. Jason squeezed one between his fingers, enough to make the blood rush, on the edge of pain, and barely touched his tongue to the tip. Still pinching one nipple, Jason licked the other into a knot of nerves, then abruptly abandoned them both. For an eternal moment, Jason’s weight on the bed was the only sign that he hadn’t walked away.

Jason blew across the tip of Josh’s dick and laughed when Josh shivered. Jason wrapped a slicked-up hand around Josh’s dick and stroked, not quite forcefully enough, more of a tease than a hand job. The stuff on his hand was thick - hotel moisturizer? No, wrong smell, probably the lube that felt like moisturizer and tasted good. Josh had thought they’d run out of that. Tasted good, that meant getting his dick sucked. Josh wanted that, but didn’t want this to be over so easily.

Josh felt fingers in his ass, probably just two, not enough to stir more than anticipation. So he wasn’t getting fingered, but Jason didn’t usually bounce back that fast. Tongue, maybe? But that was more of a him-on-Jason thing than the other way around. 

Something teased at the rim of Josh’s ass, something not attached to Jason’s body. An object, a toy. It was slim at first, easy to take, but as Jason inched it deeper, it got thicker around the base, stinging Josh where it entered him and filling him up so he pushed back instinctively. Another nudge deeper, and the tip curved upward, hitting the edge of Josh’s sweet spot, the one Jason could just barely get at with his fingertips. Josh gasped as Jason gave the toy another nudge, and then it was _right there_. “Stop,” Josh choked out. “Perfect.” Jason kissed his stomach.

And then the fucking thing started vibrating, and Josh was not responsible for _anything_ he screamed. It was mostly, “I love you, I fucking _love_ you.”

Jason took his hands off the toy and went down on Josh. It was a good thing Josh’s body was worn out from a day of skating and press, or he wouldn’t have lasted more than a few seconds. His sore muscles gave him extra time to enjoy the hum and stretch of the toy and the caress of Jason’s lips before he came so hard, Jason had to hold him down.

Jason left the toy to buzz for another minute before he wiggled it out and told Josh he could open his eyes.

“You didn’t, like, buy that today, did you?” Josh said, his voice hoarse, his body unwilling to sit up.

“I picked it out on the internet a few months ago,” Jason said. “I’ve been waiting for the right moment. I was worried you’d, like, not be into it.”

“I might not have been if you’d just whipped it out one night,” Josh admitted.

Jason curled up next to him. He was naked except for his glasses, and his skin was warm. 

“How did you know, like, that it would fit?” Josh kissed him, laughing at his own stupid question.

Jason sucked in his breath like there was an unexpectedly serious answer. “I have one. Its name is Josh. Actually, Josh Three, I ruined the first one with the wrong lube and left the second one in a hotel room in France.”

It was impossible not to giggle at someone who named his butt plugs like they were goldfish. “But you didn’t tell me?”

“I don’t know, it just seemed like my own private thing,” Jason said. “Like, I don’t ask you what you’re jerking off to on the internet.”

“You want to watch my _porn?_ ”

“Could be fun,” Jason said. “Bowl of popcorn, bottle of wine. Movie night.”

“We could switch off between our favorites and make it a film festival,” Josh said.

Jason nestled in tighter against Josh. “You have the most beautiful ideas.” Josh held him silently for a while, kissing his forehead and his cheeks, tugging strands of hair loose from his ponytail. “You know what?” Jason said. “I think your dinner’s still in the microwave.”

“Let it sit,” Josh said. “I’m getting another donut.”

*

22.

“Jason, you have cake on your face. And I’m not touching it.” Jason almost used his sleeve before remembering that he was in a suit, and weddings provided napkins. Semi-formal wasn’t a particularly good look for either of them: even a well-tailored suit made Jason feel short, and Josh shone more in a t-shirt and jeans than in anything that required dry cleaning. Still, it was cool that Alexa and Chris had invited them, and even cooler that they’d sent a joint invitation, Mr. Jason Brown and Mr. Joshua Farris. 

The wedding band struck up a sultry slow dance, and the singer said, “Okay, we want all the happy couples to join Alexa and Chris out here.” Half a dozen older couples trotted out to the dance floor immediately, people who looked like they’d been married longer than Jason had been alive. Jason looked out at them enviously, remembering his media training. Weddings had napkins, and they also had a closet.

Mariah nudged him under the table. “What are you waiting for? Go.”

“You know we’re not supposed to -”

“Come on, Jason,” Mariah said. “Who here doesn’t know you two are together?”

“America,” Jason grumbled. But he’d had a glass of wine, and he wanted to dance. What was the worst that could happen? He stood up and held out his hand to Josh, who giggled before leading him out to the floor.

As they put their arms around each other and swayed to “At Last,” Josh said, “Is this the first time we’ve slow-danced together?”

“Yeah, probably,” Jason said. “That’s kind of sad.”

“But it’s fun now,” Josh said, kissing his forehead.

Now that Jason was convinced they wouldn’t be hauled off the floor by USFSA spies, it _was_ fun. They hardly left the dance floor for the rest of the night, jumping around and twirling each other during the fast songs, melting into each other’s arms during the slow ones. The band wrapped things up at midnight, but Jason could have gone till dawn. “I guess that extra off-ice stamina training is paying off,” Josh said, and Jason laughed.

A couple of days later, Jason woke up to a text from Mariah. **Cutest pic of you guys on IceNetwork!** With so many skaters at the wedding, the website had put up a whole slide show. And there they were, halfway through the photo set, giant smiles on their faces, shimmying to some unknown song. Josh was off somewhere being an early bird, and Jason called out to him, “Hey hon, did you see the wedding pics?”

Josh ran into the bedroom. “Wedding pics?”

Jason showed Josh the image on his phone. “So I guess we’re out now. That was easy.”

“No, look at it,” Josh said. “We’re not, I mean, we’re not touching or anything. If you were really dense or, like, the Russian government, you could think we were just friends.”

“That’s kind of disappointing.”

Josh kissed Jason and tugged his fingers through Jason’s unruly morning hair. “It’s a great picture of you though. A great picture of us.”

*

23.

Josh had thought the best feeling in the world was winning Nationals in an Olympic year, but no, the actual best feeling in the world was winning an Olympic medal. Sure, it was silver, and sure, it was just the team competition, but it was his medal, and he was never taking it off. It seemed unlikely that anyone was going to let him, with the deluge of interviews and hugs from strangers he’d been caught in since the medal ceremony. 

Someone had hung an enormous banner in USA House with Korean-style cartoon drawings of the two of them in their costumes from the team competition, Josh from his short program and Jason from his free skate. Jason whispered, “Whatever else we do tonight, we have to steal that for our apartment.” Josh laughed and agreed, but he also looked around at the crowd applauding them. To each other, they were _we_ and _us_ and _ours,_ but to most of the people cheering them on, they were two separate guys, competitors and rivals. 

Josh had a mission, and he was going to follow through before he lost his nerve. He found his mom among the partygoers. “Do you have the ring?”

The noise and bustle must have drowned him out, because she replied, “Your food’s in the fridge in that kitchen area down the hall. It has your name on it.”

“No. Mom. The _ring._ ” She’d helped him pick it out a few weeks before, then guarded it so Jason wouldn’t snoop around the apartment and find it. When he’d told her he wanted to propose at the Olympics, she’d gotten even more excited.

“I thought you were going to wait until after the Closing Ceremonies,” his mom said. “But I did bring it tonight, just in case.”

Josh had the world’s best mom. He hugged her and thanked her.

It took about ten frustrated minutes to get Jason’s attention. Josh dropped to one knee, and Jason gasped. Josh realized he hadn’t written a speech at all, but he’d been through enough press conferences to trust himself to wing it. “So I was trying to think of what could make this day even better than it already was,” he began, and as he finished that sentence, he figured out the rest of it. “And, like, during the medal ceremony today, I looked over at you, and I realized it was the first time in our lives that we were even. Like, our whole lives, sometimes you’ve beaten me, and sometimes I’ve beaten you, but today we won _together._ And that’s, that’s what I want to do for the rest of my life, is share amazing things with you. So will you -” he fumbled momentarily for the ring - “will you marry me?”

Jason shrieked before he said anything. “Oh my God. I mean, yes! And I love it, and it fits, and I am totally surprised, and _yes._ Do you think it’s okay if I kiss you?”

“I think it would be weird if you didn’t,” Josh said.

Josh didn’t want to think about how many people were taking pictures. Hell, someone was probably uploading this to YouTube already. “I think we just stole a news cycle,” he whispered. And they were kissing and laughing at the same time, because they were Olympic medalists with excellent coordination.

*

24.

Jason’s body was kind enough to hold off on the serious pain until after the Olympics and Worlds, but the post-season tour did him in. He slept funny on a flight to Japan, and the twinge in his back that he’d nursed since he’d been skating Novice turned into a giant fist with a knife. In Colorado, the doctor told him he had a repetitive stress injury and needed surgery, needed it now, risked permanent numbness in his legs or even paralysis. The pain was so bad, he would have signed up for the surgery even without the doomsday predictions.

The recovery was more brutal than the injury itself. It was a week before he could sit up, and two more before he could limp to the bathroom on his own. His parents and siblings took week-long shifts, flying out to Colorado to take care of him. Kori, his friends, and Josh’s parents came by for frequent visits, and Josh called every day from the tour. Still, Jason felt bored and lonely, and the painkillers made him queasy. 

His dad drove him to the doctor for his one-month checkup. The doctor prodded and tested, then ran through a long list of questions, half of which didn’t seem at all related to Jason’s back. “Your recovery’s been slower than we usually like to see,” the doctor said. “I don’t think you’ll need another surgery, but we might have to push back our timeline a bit.”

“What timeline? How much?” All Jason wanted to do was get back on the ice, back to training, back to normal.

“When we talked before your surgery, I told you the best case scenario was that you could start skating again sometime around October,” the doctor said. “That seems overly optimistic now.”

“How overly optimistic? Like, November or December? Because that might still be enough for Nationals.”

“It’s possible,” the doctor said. “But the difficult thing about this kind of injury is, it often requires you to relearn a lot of your technique to compensate for the changes in your mobility. I would recommend against trying to compete this season. Give yourself time to heal, and to adjust mentally.”

Jason held it together until he got into the car, and then he let himself cry. “What the hell am I supposed to do with myself?” 

He hadn’t wanted a real answer, but his dad was practical. “Well, you must be close to graduation by now. Maybe you can see this as an opportunity to focus on your education.”

The more Jason thought about getting to go to college full time, the more the idea brought him out of his funk. When he’d started college, he’d planned to have the kind of normal experience he’d had in high school, but qualifying for the Sochi Olympics had rearranged his priorities. He’d transferred to an easier school and down-shifted to part time. It wasn’t a decision he regretted, but he longed sometimes for the road he hadn’t traveled. His dad was right: it was an opportunity, a sign.

Jason called his college counselor and confirmed that he had less than two semesters left to qualify for graduation. “You’ll have time for an internship in the spring,” his counselor assured him perkily. For the first time since his surgery, he felt like himself again, full of energy and excitement.

Jason waited until Josh came back from the tour to explain the extent of the bad medical news. Josh hugged him carefully. “That’s literally the worst,” Josh said. “A whole season, and - I mean, if you need me to be around for you, I -”

“No, what I need you to do is skate,” Jason said. “Skate, and be beautiful, like you are, and win everything.”

In December, Josh won the Grand Prix Final and Jason got straight A’s. 

After those accomplishments, Jason felt ready to put his skates on. For the first time Jason could remember, everything felt wrong when he was on the ice. His back felt tight, and his legs felt like Jell-o. Kori encouraged him when he finished his half-hour of no jumps, no spins, no bending, but he knew she could see it even more clearly than he could. “Don’t worry,” she said. “You’ll get it back.”

“I know,” Jason said, “and I will, I mean, probably not the quad, but most of it. But now, I think it’s just for fun.”

“You’re just saying that because it was your first day back, and you had to keep your blades on the ground,” Kori said.

“No, I’ve been thinking about it since the summer,” Jason said. “And, I mean, twenty-four-year-old guys come back all the time, people come back from injuries, I know it’s possible. But, like, I’m doing really well in school, I’m getting _married,_ and I know it’s weird and I’m the last person you’d expect to ever say this, but I kind of want to grow up. And to skate, I always want to skate, but now I just want to do it because I love it.” He was fighting tears by the end of the last sentence, and so was Kori. She hugged him for a long time.

Jason kept trying to tell Josh about his decision to retire, but Josh was so focused on Nationals, and Jason didn’t want to demoralize him. They’d never been the kind of couple to share absolutely everything, but Jason had never held in a secret so huge and so life-altering.

They got to go to Nationals together because IceNetwork had hired Jason as an intern for the spring semester, and they were throwing him right into the deep end. On the plane, Josh said, “So. I’m pretty sure this is going to be my last season.”

“Really?” Jason was as surprised as he’d been when Josh had proposed. “Because you’re healthy, and you’re getting the best results of your life.”

“Yeah, I know, but I’ve been looking at you and, like, you have time to do all this new stuff, and you’re _free,_ and I just keep thinking - what else do I have to achieve in the sport that I haven’t already done? I had this long talk with Christy about going out on a high note, and that’s where I am, that’s what I want.”

“Oh, God, that makes this so much easier.” It wasn’t the most supportive thing Jason could have said, but he’d been sucking it in for so long, it tumbled out. “Because I talked to Kori, like, a month ago about the future, and there was a lot of hugging and crying, and we’re going to train me back enough so I can do shows and stuff, but I’m never going to be back to a hundred percent, so I’d rather just have fun than be, like, the world’s saddest comeback.”

Josh squeezed Jason’s hand. He sounded for a moment like he was going to say something, but instead he rested his head on Jason’s shoulder. Jason let the moment linger for several minutes before he laughed, “What the hell are we going to do with ourselves?”

“Well, you have a career in broadcasting ahead of you,” Josh said.

“It’s an _internship,_ ” Jason said. “And I’m not sure I even like that part of it. I mean, they hired me into the marketing and PR division, and that’s way more interesting.”

“Then it’s good you’re going to make some money, because I was planning on trying to make it as a singer-songwriter.”

Jason almost believed him for a second before the mutual giggles set in.

“No, seriously, I -” Josh cleared the last of the laughter out of his throat - “I’ve been thinking about sports psychology? As, like, an alternative to playing the guitar all day.”

“Isn’t that, like, years of school?” Jason said.

“I think I can handle it if it’s a clear goal, and I have you to help me with my papers, so yeah.”

Jason loved Josh’s ability to throw him for a loop, even now. “I think it’s a really cool idea.”

“But first I’m going to kick all those 18-year-old kids’ butts at Nationals,” Josh said, in the placid and laid-back way that meant he was out for blood.

*

25.

 **I got the job!!!** Josh got Jason’s text while he was teaching a studio rink full of seven-year-olds how to do forward three-turns, and he had to wait until their class was over to check his phone. Josh loved his Basic Skills classes, the little girls in their pink dresses holding their arms out wide as they remembered to stroke outward instead of trying to run, the boys who he convinced not to switch to hockey because in figure skating, you got to spin around really fast. The rink where he was working part-time was pressuring him to take some higher-level students, but he actually wanted to put school ahead of skating for the first time in his life. A few parents were paying him top dollar to choreograph competitive routines, and that was fun, although he had to tone down his artistic ambitions for eleven-year-olds who stared up at him with defiant confusion.

 **THE job?!** Josh texted back. Since they’d moved to California, they’d had no problem finding coaching jobs, so they had no trouble paying the rent. But for a friendly and outgoing person, Jason sure hated coaching. Jason had never mentioned what his problem was. Josh suspected that he didn’t know, himself, but Josh’s theory was that Jason had put too much effort into his marketing degree and internship to be happy doing anything else. Jason put on a brave face, but Josh could tell the difference between a genuine Jason smile and a well-meaning fake. 

There were more opportunities for Jason to get a real job in public relations or marketing in Los Angeles than in Colorado Springs, but there was also a lot more competition. It was enough to make Josh feel bad, some days, for dragging Jason out here. But on the other hand, Jason was never really happy unless he had a challenge to overcome, a challenge he’d set for himself. It was one of the ways the two of them were alike.

Josh packed up his skates and headed home. He’d gotten used to biking everywhere because his favorite thing about Southern California was 75-degree weather in November, and his least favorite thing was traffic. His brother made fun of him for letting L.A. turn him into a hipster, but he’d come there already wearing skinny jeans and playing the guitar. Biking was more satisfying than the gym, and the time alone, outdoors, helped him focus.

On the ride home, Josh thought about the pile of homework awaiting him. As uninvested as he’d been in his community college classes in Colorado, he’d gotten all of his gen eds out of the way, and his adviser had told him he might finish both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees over the next four years. That estimate had brought him to Long Beach in the first place. If there was a time frame Josh could handle, it was a four-year cycle. He liked the classes, too, not only because he wished someone had taught him principles of kinesiology at fifteen, but because everyone else in his major was an athlete, current or former. Also, lots of labs and field work, not a lot of writing, which made everything easier to understand.

He beat Jason home by a few minutes but barely had time to crack open his Biomechanics textbook before he heard the garage door rumble below. Jason bounded up the stairs, still goofy and childlike when he was happy. He looked really professional and put-together in his button-down shirt and new glasses, though. “You got it?” Josh said redundantly.

Jason hopped onto the couch next to Josh. “Yeah, I could tell from the way they looked at me when I walked in that it was probably good news, but I knew I could still say the wrong thing and screw it up, so, like - Anyway, it’s a small firm, they mostly do online publicity, they want to get into some sports promotion but aren’t sure how to, and that’s basically _all_ my experience. And, like, I don’t want to make too much of this, but pretty much the entire firm is gay, and it’s like, I didn’t realize I was _un_ comfortable before, but it’s just so - where I want to be. I mean, apparently you have really good taste in engagement rings. There was a lot of excitement.”

Josh couldn’t begin to find words for how he felt, so he kissed Jason instead. 

“So I guess we can stop being terrified about the future now,” Jason said. “Or I can. Were you ever, or was it just me?”

“About moving to a new state to study something that, like, I randomly came up with one night as a job that I could maybe possibly do? No, I had that totally fucking covered.”

“I was so afraid of being one of those people who, like, they retire, and they realize they’ll never be anything else,” Jason said. “And obviously I did a lot of stuff to make sure I wouldn’t be, but even so, and now here we are, and it’s not remotely the same thing as winning a medal, but - does it feel that way for you?”

“Sort of,” Josh said. “I mean, I always knew I could win medals.”

Jason nestled into Josh’s arms. “So it’s not weird that this feels like a bigger deal?”

“Maybe other people would think it was weird?” Josh said. “But whatever. Fuck ‘em.”

It was Jason’s turn to seem not to know what to say, and to kiss Josh instead. But that didn’t last long. “You know what we should do?” Jason said. “We should get married. I mean, now that things are more settled, we can stop putting that off.”

“Can we wait until after finals?” Josh laughed even though he was mostly serious.

“No. You gave me this ring, and now I’m cashing it in,” Jason said. “But I can take the lead on the plans if you want me to. I mean, it’ll give me an excuse to quit my stupid coaching job that I’m not going to have time for now.”

“As long as the band doesn’t suck and I can eat the cake, I’m good,” Josh said.

*

26.

For all that Jason had dreamed of marrying Josh since he’d been twelve years old, he’d never given much thought to the actual wedding. If he had, it might have occurred to him that it would be really hard to find a wedding location in Colorado Springs where they wouldn’t sigh when he explained why the entire meal needed to be scrub-the-kitchen-down dairy-free. He might have realized that Josh’s parents would be less than okay with a rabbi no matter how much they loved Jason, and a ceremony that mentioned Jesus would have sat with Jason about as well as cheese sat with Josh. He might have considered that if they held the wedding in Colorado, the politics of the skating community would turn the guest list into _War and Peace_ in more ways than one. 

He might have given up and taken Josh on a field trip to City Hall.

Instead, he improvised. A Justice of the Peace with a free Saturday night in July, a co-worker with a friend of a friend who could help them rent a stretch of private beach, emails to immediate family and the twenty friends who really mattered. He reserved the back room of a Japanese restaurant that had succeeded in not killing Josh yet, ordered four dozen vegan cupcakes, and gave an ecstatic Josh the assignment of making a playlist.

They stood on a beach at sunset, barefoot in blue jeans, and pledged their love to each other. In some ways, it didn’t feel different than any time they’d done that before. But Josh put the ring on Jason’s finger, and Jason caught his mom’s eye for a second, and the whole thing hit him at once. He had an audience. Whatever he felt, they wanted to feel with him. He’d gotten so used to seeing his relationship with Josh as private, something he couldn’t share or explain. He’d been wrong. They kissed, and everyone cheered.

The judge urged them to take a few minutes to themselves while everyone else drove to the restaurant ahead of them. They sat in the sand, looking out at the ocean. “Hey, we did it,” Josh said, putting his arm around Jason’s shoulder. “You’re my husband. I have a husband.”

“Hey, me too,” Jason said. “Pretty cool how that works.”

*

27.

Josh was stuck at the master’s degree program welcome picnic alone. Jason had wanted to go - well, not _wanted_ to, necessarily, but wanted to protect Josh from several hours of unstructured interaction with strangers who would keep asking why he wasn’t eating anything - but he was stuck at work because something had gotten messed up on the client end of one of his projects. So Josh was out there alone, letting other people initiate small talk, drinking iced tea and gnawing carrot sticks because the smell of burgers on the grill was _killing_ him. 

The itchy burn began in his eyes and spread down his face to his lips and throat. What had he eaten? Something in the tea? Well, it didn’t matter. He interrupted one of the women he’d been standing near and said, so calmly she probably thought he was making it up, “I’m having a severe allergic reaction. Can you please call 911 for me?” Once she realized he was serious and dialed, the party went into a frenzy. The good thing about a picnic full of former athetes was, they didn’t get squeamish about shooting him up with epinephrine and Benadryl. There were more helpful people than jobs to be done, and Josh mostly wished they would back off and let him wheeze in peace.

Someone half-carried Josh to a lawn chair. Josh remembered the guy from his orientation group, a quiet giant who’d introduced himself as a former college defensive end who hadn’t quite made it to the NFL. “Ambulance is on its way,” the guy, Keshaun, said. “I could see you were getting stressed out by all the attention, so I hope you don’t mind that I moved you over here. What should I do to keep you safe until the paramedics get here?” He sounded like a guy who’d been the only level-headed person during a lot of medical emergencies.

Josh went through his checklist, relieved that the drugs were letting him get enough air in to talk. “Keep me sitting up so my airway stays open. Talk to me so I stay awake and out of shock. Call my husband when the ambulance comes so he knows which emergency room to drop everything and run to.”

Keshaun did the double-take that Josh had gotten used to when he referred to Jason as his husband. Sometimes people were surprised he was gay, sometimes that he was married. Both seemed obvious to him.

“I’ll come clean, I googled you after Orientation,” Keshaun said. “Man, if you want to be all over YouTube, learn to ice skate. How do you even do that stuff?”

“Practice,” Josh wheeze-laughed.

“Sorry, I won’t make you talk.” Keshaun said he was getting married next spring, and he had a phone full of pictures of decorations that he and his fiancée had picked out. For a minute, Josh resented that Keshaun had mistaken him for the kind of gay who understood flower arrangements, but it became clear pretty quickly that Keshaun was the kind of _straight_ who understood flower arrangements and was thrilled to have a captive audience. Josh liked being happy for people. He also liked maybe making a friend. He got along with people great, but they had to push pretty hard to get him to relax. When he’d been younger, it had been easy, since there had always been kids around the rink to hang out with. Adulthood, and living in a big new city, had set him adrift in a sea of people.

Two paramedics rushed in with a stretcher. Josh tried to breathe a sigh of relief, but his windpipe was too tight. He called Jason and handed the phone to Keshaun. When Keshaun gave it back a minute later, he said, “Here, I put my number in your contacts so you can text me and let me know you’re all right.” The paramedics had already covered Josh’s face with an oxygen mask, so Josh nodded and thumbs-upped.

The ride to the hospital and initial treatment were the usual blur of familiarity and terror. Settled in a hospital bed with an IV pumping anti-inflammatory steroids into his arm and a mask pushing a bitter mixture of oxygen and medicine into his lungs, he checked his phone and found a ton of texts from Jason to cheer him up. 

**On my way. Eta = a million years because traffic.**

**Seth from work is driving me because I guess I am a crazed ball of panic so don’t worry, I am not texting and driving.**

**Looking forward to seeing you on lots of drugs so you can drop f-bombs and maybe fire someone.**

Just as Josh was running out of ways to entertain himself on a mobile phone in public, Jason came barreling in. “You know what’s incredible? Coming into an emergency room and saying you’re looking for your _husband._ It’s like, ‘Right this way Mr. Brown, he’s doing fine and resting, this is every single thing we did to make him not die of food, do you have any questions?’”

It was really hard to laugh with an oxygen mask on, but Josh did his best.

Jason pulled a chair up next to Josh’s bed and snuggled as close to him as he could. “I promise not to miss any more of your grad school social events,” he said. “If you’re going to get rushed to the hospital, I want to be there.” 

Josh tapped their foreheads together and messed up Jason’s hair until he dozed off.

*

28-29.

“Remember when we used to have sex?” Jason said one night as he got home from work at 10:30 to find Josh surrounded by a fortress of library books and data for his master’s thesis. 

“I think we saw each other more often when we were sixteen,” Josh grumbled, not looking away from the computer. They rallied enough that night for a round of sleepy blow jobs and a promise that they would go on an amazing vacation during Josh’s winter break.

Two months later, they had a private villa in Cabo San Lucas and an agreement that if Jason didn’t check his work email, Josh would ignore his thesis. They spent most of their first day in Mexico asleep. Now, with the afternoon waning on the second day of their vacation, they were sitting on their villa’s patio in their swim trunks, drinking the margaritas that magically appeared within three minutes of calling room service. 

“So I guess tomorrow we go parasailing?” Jason said.

“I don’t think I agreed to that,” Josh said. 

“Come on. You have to admit it looks cool.”

“It looks like paying eighty bucks to ride around in a jump harness,” Josh said. 

Jason giggled because the mental image was annoyingly accurate. “You’re no fun.”

Josh set his drink down and straddled Jason’s lap. “I’m fun in other ways.”

Jason raked his fingers up Josh’s chest. Sometimes, Josh’s body shocked him. In Jason’s mind’s eye, and often in dreams, Josh looked the way he had when they’d been seventeen or eighteen, rosy-cheeked and gangly. Awake, Jason knew that skinny boy wouldn’t appeal to him anymore. Josh had grown into his proportions and the angles of his face. In his mid-twenties, right around when they’d retired from skating, Josh had suffered an explosion of body hair. Ashamed, Josh had offered to wax it all off. “Only if you want to, I mean, I like you fuzzy,” Jason had said, only half meaning it at the time. But the more Jason had gotten used to it, the more he liked Josh’s scruffy masculinity. He watched the dolphin-smooth guys at the gym and wished they’d take a few weeks off from the salon.

Not that Jason would have followed that advice, himself. He enjoyed his spa days. But his body had changed, too, in other ways. After his back injury, he’d gained some weight, which had refused to drop off when he’d returned to training, instead redistributing itself as bulky muscle. He still wore his shirts a size too loose, afraid of being misread as a gym queen, but he liked when Josh kissed his pecs and told him he was ripped.

These bodies, too, were moments in time. But Jason trusted that whatever time did to them, he’d still be into Josh. 

Josh was in his lap, asking him what he wanted. “I want you inside me,” Jason said.

Josh kissed Jason’s forehead. “Of course you do.”

For a couple of years when they’d been teenagers, Jason had hoped they would outgrow the two-bottoms-one-relationship problem. Luckily, neither of them _minded_ being on top, and they both got off that way. But Josh’s weight holding him down, Josh’s arms around him and cock inside him, was just more satisfying. The other way around, Jason always felt like he was about to fall.

Josh ground against Jason and gave him a mouth full of tongue. Jason loved letting Josh take control after he’d had a couple of drinks. Tequila made him a little rough, a little messy. Josh knelt on the floor and tugged Jason’s trunks off. He rolled his tongue over Jason’s balls and the base of his cock, not so much a blow job as a wake-up call. Josh went for Jason’s ass next, working the tip of his tongue past the ring of muscle as Jason yielded to him, teasing Jason until he thought he’d have to beg.

“Fuck, lube’s still in the suitcase,” Josh said. Jason laughed with his legs in the air. They’d so perfected frantically digging through luggage for sex supplies that they could have earned an extra Olympic medal for it. Josh came running back on his toes, hard cock bobbing as he squeezed lube onto his fingers.”You need to move,” Josh said. “This angle, like, either I won’t get it in or we’ll knock the chair over.”

Inspiration struck. Jason bounced out of the chair and braced himself against the wooden patio railing. Josh cracked up. “You want me to fuck you over the railing?” But he sounded more turned on than incredulous. 

Josh took a long time with his fingers, stretching them to stroke Jason’s prostate, getting most of his hand inside before he let up. In comparison, his cock felt almost small. But Josh had a lot of power in his hips, standing up, so much that Jason almost asked him to slow down. Instead, Jason dug in his grip and pushed back against him, drawing him in deeper, forcing rough thrusts into the hand Josh had wrapped around his cock. “It’s good,” he breathed. “More. More.”

He came hard, almost losing his footing, and balanced weakly on his toes until Josh came inside him. Josh’s knees buckled into him, and Jason twirled around to keep his weight from knocking them both over. Jason kissed Josh’s prickly cheeks and neck, Josh’s breath warm across his ear.

Jason’s phone started to ring. “No,” Josh said, rocking him back and forth in a slow dance to match his ring tone. But when Jason’s phone stopped, Josh’s went off almost immediately. “Fine,” Josh said.

Jason tried to figure out who was calling, but all he could determine was that it wasn’t a tragic emergency. “No, it’s fine, we’re just on vacation,” Josh was saying. “Can you hold on a second?” Josh put the phone down on the villa’s little coffee table. Hopefully, he’d remembered to mute it before whispering loudly, “Put some pants on. It’s the adoption agency.”

Jason uttered a squeal of anticipation as he shook his trunks right-side out. He and Josh had signed up with a private adoption service about a year earlier, accepting the warning that a good match often took time. “You know, straight people make these on their own,” Josh had said after a long afternoon of filling out forms. “They make them by _accident._ ” A week before their trip, they’d met with a teenage girl who’d seemed shy and uncertain of them, and they’d gone home assuming that, like two others before her, she’d end up picking some other couple with shorter work hours and better dress sense. 

Josh put his phone on speaker and said, “Okay, we’re both here.”

“I wanted to be the first to offer you congratulations,” the woman from the adoption agency said, scripted and sincere at the same time. “Maritza wanted me to apologize on her behalf for keeping you hanging for so long. She says her parents tried to push her in another direction, but your kindness and respect for her made a strong impression. She also says she hopes you’ll teach your child to ice skate.” When they both laughed, the woman said, “She wanted to make _very sure_ I told you that.” The woman went on for a few more minutes about finances and medical care, but all Jason could hear was his heart in his throat. Finally, she wished them a good vacation and hung up.

Jason threw his arms around Josh. “We’re having a baby! We’re having a _baby._ ”

Josh squeezed Jason tight, and Jason could feel him crying with joy. “Right in time for graduation,” Josh said, a touch of dread in his voice.

“Well, that’s what you get for bending me over a railing,” Jason said, needing to laugh away his own fear as well as Josh’s. He laughed and sniffed tears away, trying to feel all his emotions at once.

*

30.

The baby was finally asleep, for now, so Josh could check his personal email. His mom had sent a short note with a bajillion attachments, because no amount of explaining all the better methods of sending photos over the internet would change her ways. _I was going through old pictures, and I thought you might get a kick out of these. Mostly from your skating competitions, a few from family vacations. My favorite is the one of you and Jason from 2005. I didn’t realize you’d known each other that long! Make sure he sees that one! ___

__Josh went through all the other pictures, including several of him and Jason together at later competitions, but when he got to the one his mom had specifically mentioned, it seemed wrong to open it alone. He found Jason in the bedroom, so close to sleep that he’d let his hair down, but with the light and his glasses still on. Josh slipped into bed next to him. “My mom sent a bunch of old pictures. I guess you can look tomorrow if you’re too tired now.”_ _

__“No, I’m up,” Jason said. “I keep thinking I hear, like, wild shenanigans on the baby monitor.”_ _

__Josh tapped his tablet screen and opened the picture. There they were, ten years old, arms around each other’s shoulders, smiling widely in their sneakers and skating costumes. “Oh my God, is that the day we met?” Jason said._ _

__“It must have been,” Josh said. “I forgot that my mom took a picture.”_ _

__“We were so little,” Jason said. “Do you think we knew?”_ _

__“Knew what?”_ _

__“That twenty years later we’d be married with a kid.” Jason laughed. “God, that sounds dumb when I say it, of course we didn’t, we were _ten._ ”_ _

__“I knew I was really happy that a boy kissed me, so much that I didn’t care that I messed up my jumps,” Josh said. “And I thought you had really cool hair.” He twisted a lock around his finger, and Jason didn’t swat him away. “Still do.”_ _

__“I was just happy you didn’t die when I kissed you,” Jason said. “Still am.” He kissed Josh’s cheek._ _

__They sat in bed, looking at old pictures, Jason’s head on Josh’s shoulder. Jason laced his fingers with Josh’s and squeezed his hand. Just like when he was ten, Josh felt like he was getting away with something wonderful, something he totally deserved._ _


End file.
